Worldwide Music News from The Steel City

The Devil Wears Prada and Veil of Maya @ Mr. Smalls

One of my all-time favorite ways to kick off the weekend is having a little bit of stress relieving fun at just about any metal show that comes my way. This time around, I lucked out with one hell of a show with The Devil Wears Prada, Veil of Maya, Silent Planet and Thousand Below. With all the shows I have attended this year, this was one of the best lineups yet to say the least.

Veil of Maya, who has been quite the topic lately, has finally returned to the stage with a brand new album coming out in a couple more weeks. It has been quite some time now it feels since they’ve played a show but one thing is for certain, there’s no rust on the wheels that is slowing them down. Sometimes it shows that some bands need a couple of shows to get back into it, but they showed no signs of such things at all Friday night. Veil of Maya came out guns ablazing it seemed with their latest single release, “Overthrow,” off of their latest album “False Idol” (October 20th, 2017). Following that, they ended up playing a handful of songs off of their prior release, “Matriarch,” which just so happened to be the majority of their set. It seems as if in doing so, Veil of Maya is basically moving on and evolving more when it comes to their music and selection of songs performed, leaving most of the past behind them as they start this next chapter of their careers. Of course they still played the fan favorites such as: Punisher, It’s Not Safe to Swim Today, Unbreakable and Subject Zero. On top of that, I had the chance to interview Marc and Lukas after the show to discuss a little bit more about “False Idol” and its epic release (Interview Below). Personally, this album has me pretty excited to see what they have been writing as of lately.

Of course, how could we ever forget the one and only The Devil Wears Prada. Aside from some of the other metal bands that make their way through Pittsburgh, TDWP have one of the biggest fan bases in Pittsburgh due to their lead vocalist, Mike Hranica, hailing from the Monroeville area quite some time ago. With that being said, and since he is a huge Pittsburgh sports fan, you know that at some point throughout the night that there was going to be a “let’s go pens’ chant thrown in the show just because they can… which they did… half a dozen times it felt. With their latest headlining tour (No Sun / No Moon) just starting it Pittsburgh, and no new album to support, I was quite curious to hear what songs they would play, and they actually ended up playing a very solid mixture of all of their albums combined. Any TDWP fan should have been at this show since you were able to experience older and newer stuff in one solid setlist. Surpisglny though, they actually played a lot of songs off of “With Roots Above and Braches Below,” more than their last couple of albums which was kind of nice to see them going back to their roots a little (pun intended). But, hearing some songs off of their “Space EP” is always refreshing for some odd reason I feel. Honestly, this was one of the best performances I’ve seen by TDWP and I wasn’t ready for the true Wildman to come out onto stage and just tear it up all night and on every part of the stage either. Truly a fantastic performance with no signs of stopping anytime soon for TDWP.